Hi, my name is Drake, and I am the main organizer of the Mises caucus in Ohio. There is a lot of stuff floating around about what the Mises caucus is and who we are, and a lot of it is wrong. I thought that a constructive way to add to the ongoing discussion was to share my own personal story and reasons for joining, leaving, and rejoining the Libertarian party, and for joining the Mises caucus as an organizer. Also, see my other, sister piece on what the Mises Caucus of Ohio plans to do going forward.
I am a native Ohian, and grew up right outside of Columbus. My family was a little bit political; reading Ayn Rand growing up really influenced my dad as a business owner and helped show him that being a capitalist is a moral thing that benefits others, a lesson he had never heard before then, but has carried ever since.
When I graduated high school in 2013, I vaguely knew I was a libertarian since I got that result on a political alignment test, but didn’t know much about it. I did a lot of LBGT activism in high school (I was the token straight cis guy as the GSA club president). The minimum wage hurts business, so it should be raised slowly. As a militant atheist, I knew that Islam was violent, and that was why we had to be in the region, but I didn’t know much about a lot of things politically. Ron Paul completely passed me by since I only started paying attention to the race during my government class starting in 2012.
In college, a copy of Atlas Shrugged drew me over to a booth from some crazy group called YAL, and I eventually showed up to a meeting. The book is still on my shelf, without a single page read, but I may eventually get back to it.
The meetings were fun; we would talk politics, play card games, and do a bit of campus activism like free speech balls. At the state convention we hosted, Thomas Massie and Tom Woods spoke and I had no idea who either were. That summer, I started listening to the Tom Woods podcast and never looked back. With plenty of free time and no roommates, I listened to podcasts like crazy. Probably 4+ hours on most days at 1.5x speed. If there was a libertarian podcast out before 2017, I probably listened to the full archives.
While doing this, I ended up in charge of my YAL chapter and got better and better at speaking and explaining these ideas. We grew from 3 people to 15 at meetings, with an email list of hundreds. If you want to know more, listen here:
In the middle of this came the Libertarian party and the 2016 election, where I supported Austin Petersen. He was clear spoken, tech savvy, and unapologetic about liberty. Exactly what I wanted to see and exactly the type of messaging that brought me in, that I had found to be successful and important.
While University of Cincinnati isn’t a liberal arts school, it was still going through the same SJW meme wars as the rest of colleges across the country. I had been, multiple times, told that I can’t have an opinion about the minimum wage because I am white, called racist, called a nazi, and whatever else. And I didn’t take it lying down. I believed in saying your thoughts uncensored, that the value of your ideas don’t come from your sex and race, and that harsh truths should be confronted out in the open instead of hidden (and still do).
Of course Libertarians should come out and stand firmly against the worst things the government is doing, and not hide what we believe. The drug war is destroying the lives of millions, bombing innocent civilians is murder, the minimum wage takes jobs from the poor, people own guns to overthrow tyrants, etc. Wouldn’t the LP be on board?
Turns out that they were not. The Party supported Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, and it was pretty explicit that it was not just a disagreement over the most qualified candidate, but of ideology. Some members of the LP would be happier if I never joined. If people like me were kicked out, kept out, or at least allowed to do grunt work but never given an important position.
Also, Bill Weld. He is a warmonger of a Republican: bad on drugs, bad on guns, bad on civil liberties, bad on everything. I will not vote for a Raytheon executive. I will not vote for someone who as assistant attorney general “went so far as to argue in favor of the legality of using the Air Force to shoot suspected drug-smuggling planes out of the sky, a policy that even his boss was unwilling to endorse.” (source: https://mises.org/wire/joe-biden-father-drug-wars-asset-forfeiture-program)
So, I continued to support the party for a while. Volunteered at some events, sent my members to help out the candidates (and many to help out Rand Paul as well), but ultimately left due to this decision.
I stayed involved through YAL since I do really care about liberty. To me, it is not just about social get-togethers or fun things with candidates. I have lived in third world countries, I have some idea (though still not real understanding) of how many people are suffering. I volunteer and do what I can to change the world. I have read enough economics to know that systematic policy changes do far more to help the world than my donations ever could. Would you rather put a million dollars into failing city schools, or stop locking up the students’ fathers for victimless crimes?
Then, the LP made it even more explicit that it didn’t want me involved, with the national chair calling the Mises Institute the preferred think tank of nazis, and saying Tom Woods is a fascist. There is a lot more to unpack there (including the great moment when Nick Sarwark in a debate doubled down on the idea that if Hitler ran as an LP candidate, we should vote for him just for ballot access), but simply put, the party of Bill Weld isn’t the party for me.
Then came the Mises caucus. It did technically start before the whole Nick Sarwark thing, but that really gave it wings. Just like the radical caucus before it, the goal was to “take over” the LP. Make the LP more libertarian, with better messaging, and a doubling down on economics.
What does “takeover” mean? Following the rules and procedures, out-recruit and out-organize people who support Bill Weld. Work with the good people in the LP, remove the openly toxic people from positions of authority if necessary, and change the messaging and direction of the party. To paraphrase Nick Sarwark, “if you have a complaint about how the party is doing things, join and change it”.
But that wasn’t enough for me. I was so burned out on the party that I didn’t really get involved until 2020. Sure, I showed up once or twice, but it was a bottom priority. I was just known enough so that when I reached out to Michael Sweeny to get more involved, he gave me a trial run on the county ex comm.
Why 2020? Why is that when the Mises caucus blew up so much again? Because during the largest assault on liberty in my lifetime, happening worldwide, the Libertarian party was silent. Sure, some state parties were good, but if the national party only stands for liberty when it is convenient and easy, we need a change in leadership.
Courage and honesty when the truth is unpopular is what changed my mind, and it is what I think is absolutely necessary. Especially when millions of lives are on the line (discussion the death toll of lockdowns in the third world:
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It is also easier to organize around a candidate, and while imperfect, Jacob Hornberger was by far my favorite (Vermin was my second choice, though after seeing him on the judicial committee and his social media since, I am happy he didn’t get it).
How about JoJo? Best LP candidate since 2008 for sure! (Maybe 2004, but I don’t know the history there as well). The MC was successful in pushing the party in a much more radical and libertarian direction, with Spike as an excellent VP pick, endorsed by the radical and Mises caucus. There are plenty of complaints about the campaign, but it was still a big improvement.
I think that we can still do better. That’s why I am here, like many other caucuses in the LP. To have my voice heard in terms of messaging, to support the candidates that I think are the best, to support the actions I think are the most effective, and achieve liberty in our lifetimes.
Now the Mises caucus is larger and more effective than ever, has more of a voice in the party, and has always played fairly and within the bylaws. Unlike the people who are trying to purge us from the party, who have repeatedly violated rules, both parliamentary and bylaws, and seem content burning down the party rather than giving up the ring of power.
I am happy to be a member of the Mises caucus. I have seen us do a lot to grow and improve the party. I love many of the friends I have made in the Ohio LP, and I hope that my work will help grow liberty for everyone.
Second Piece in this Series:
Third Piece in this Series: